AAN News
Once Again, Alt-Weeklies Fare Well in Food Journalists' Awardsnew
The Association of Food Journalists last week named the winners of its 2009 Awards Competition at a banquet in New Orleans. Seattle Weekly's Jonathan Kauffman won first place for Best Newspaper Restaurant Criticism and Creative Loafing (Atlanta)'s Besha Rodell took home first for Best Newspaper Food Feature. (Riverfront Times' Kristen Hinman took third in that category.) Kauffman's victory marks the fourth year in a row that a Village Voice Media paper has won the Best Newspaper Restaurant Criticism category.
The Association of Food Journalists (PDF file) |
10-13-2009 8:54 am |
Honors & Achievements
How I Got That Story Live Chat: Joel Warner Talks About His Award-Winning Feature Story
Westword's Joel Warner, who won first place for feature story in the above 50,000 circulation category for "The Good Soldier," discussed the story with his editor Patricia Calhoun in a live chat.
(FULL STORY)
AAN |
10-09-2009 3:21 pm |
Association News
Ex-Nashville Scene Editor Returns as SouthComm's Interim Exec. Editornew
Liz Garrigan, who had recently been helping the Scene out as a freelance contributing editor, will become the interim executive editor for SouthComm's three main Nashville publications: The Scene, The City Paper and NashvillePost.com. SouthComm CEO Chris Ferrell, who bought the alt-weekly from Village Voice Media in August, describes Garrigan's new job as "a temporary stint of a few months' duration," during which time she will be responsible for "develop[ing] a more smoothly functioning, integrated organization" in regards to converged editorial operations. The Tennessean reports that the integration has already begun, with SouthComm merging the City Paper's Thursday print edition with the Scene. (The City Paper still publishes a print edition on Monday.)
Nashville Scene |
10-09-2009 9:40 am |
Industry News
Alt-Cartoonists Sound Off About the Changing Industrynew
"This art form that I fell in love with 20 years ago is on its hospital bed," Dan Perkins, aka Tom Tomorrow, tells Extra! in a piece on how the alt-weekly industry's struggles have affected alt-cartoonists. Other prominent cartoonists, like Lloyd Dangle, Jen Sorensen and Alison Bechdel, weigh in on losing clients, the digital transformation and what comes next. "We're a little like op-ed columnists; people wouldn't expect someone like Paul Krugman to sell T-shirts to survive and pay for his column," Sorensen says. "The idea that content should be free is definitely threatening our entire genre." MORE CARTOONING NEWS: Perkins talks to the New Haven Advocate about his new book, Pearl Jam and the "not so bright" future of his craft.
Extra! |
10-08-2009 2:12 pm |
Industry News
Applications for Westword Pot Critic Gig 'Continue to Pour In'new
In its quest to find a medical marijuana dispensary reviewer, the Denver alt-weekly is asking would-be critics to write a brief essay on "What Marijuana Means to Me." Editor Patricia Calhoun says that the national media attention has brought in quite a few applications -- "some silly, some actually spelled correctly (many potheads don't seem to care for punctuation), some very sincere."
Westword |
10-08-2009 11:17 am |
Industry News
Ohio Alt-Weeklies Take Home 14 State Press Awardsnew
The Ohio Society of Professional Journalists Awards have announced the winners of its 2009 awards contest. The Cleveland Scene won seven total awards, finishing first for Arts Profile, Media Criticsm, Newsmaker Profile, Public Service Journalism and Rock and Roll Feature Reporting. The Cleveland Free Times, which was merged with the Scene in July 2008, took home two awards, including a first-place win for Consumer Reporting, and The Other Paper of Columbus won five awards.
Ohio Society of Professional Journalists (PDF file) |
10-08-2009 9:21 am |
Honors & Achievements
Coalition Settles Suit With Cincinnati CityBeatnew
The city of Cincinnati and a coalition of local religious and nonprofit leaders led by Citizens for Community Values (CCV) have settled a federal lawsuit filed last year by CityBeat after the groups and law enforcement leaders had publicly asked the paper to stop publishing adult-oriented classified ads. "After a long year of fighting for our First Amendment right to publish CityBeat without government interference, I'm pleased and gratified to wrap up the legal proceedings on such a positive note," co-publisher and editor John Fox writes. While he admits that fighting the suit was "distracting at times," Fox says there was a principle to uphold. "I remain convinced that standing up to the CCV coalition's threats and intimidation was the right thing to do," he writes. "After all, the only reason bullies do what they do is because they think they can get away with it."
Cincinnati CityBeat |
10-07-2009 3:09 pm |
Industry News
Boise Weekly Unveils Redesigned Print Productnew
"The project has been both the most benign undertaking of the year and the most important," Weekly editor Rachael Daigle writes, "as an industrywide slump forced staffing changes while we simultaneously rolled out a new website, inaugurated first-ever supplements, and then radically changed Best of Boise." She says "the new design represents a maturity" in the nearly-18-year-old alt-weekly.
Boise Weekly |
10-07-2009 10:34 am |
Industry News
Book Critic: AltWeeklies.com is Part of a 'River of Critical Energy' Onlinenew
"Sales may be flat, bookstores may be struggling and book sections may be dying, but the critical conversation about books continues to be robust, intelligent and adventurous," former San Francisco Chronicle book critic Patricia Holt writes on Huffington Post. She points to six websites as proof, including AltWeeklies.com, of which she writes: "If you're weary of the received wisdom of official book review sites ... here is a treasury of refreshing and often unpredictable takes from alternative weeklies all over the country."
Huffington Post |
10-06-2009 3:01 pm |
Industry News
Westword Editor: Pot Critic Story is 'Very Serious'new
"It's funny how the national media has jumped all over this," Patricia Calhoun writes of the attention being given to the paper's quest to hire a freelance critic to review medical marijuana dispensaries. But while most outlets have taken a "light, fun" tone to the story, she says the issue is serious business in Colorado. "There's one aspect of our search for a reviewer that's not funny: How very, very important easy access to quality medical marijuana is for so many people," Calhoun writes.
Westword |
10-06-2009 2:43 pm |
Industry News
Ted Rall Releases New Graphic Memoirnew
Ted Rall has teamed up with Pablo G. Callejo for The Year of Loving Dangerously, which is based on Rall's experience getting arrested, dumped, expelled and evicted in New York City in 1984. It's Rall's first collaborative effort, and it hits stores next month. "Year is an allegory for the economic collapse, showcasing what can happen to anyone, even a white Ivy-educated male, who suffers a run of bad luck," Rall writes. "It's also a shot across the bow of other male graphic artists who wallow in self-pity and alienation." The Washington Post's Michael Cavna says the book is "a little bit Midnight Cowboy in tone, and part The Graduate."
Rall.com |
10-06-2009 10:28 am |
Industry News
Federal Trade Commission Rules Bloggers Should Disclose Freebiesnew
According to Federal Trade Commission (FTC) guidelines released yesterday, bloggers who review products should in many cases disclose when those products are given to them for free, but traditional journalists usually don't need to. The guides -- which call for a case-by-case analysis of whether disclosure is required -- are not enforceable, but "serve to put marketers on notice about the type of activity the FTC will consider deceptive," Online Media Daily reports.
Online Media Daily |
10-06-2009 9:40 am |
Industry News
Tags: Editorial, Management
Third 'How I Got That Story' Live Chat Coming This Friday
Westword staff writer Joel Warner and editor Patricia Calhoun will be live on AAN.org this Friday talking about Warner's story "The Good Soldier," which won first place for feature story in the above 50,000 circulation category. The chat will begin at 3:30 EDT.
(FULL STORY)
AAN |
10-05-2009 1:41 pm |
Association News
New Yorker: Nikki Finke is 'a Combination Town Crier and Volcano God'new
Finke gets the New Yorker profile treatment this week in a nearly-8,000 word piece with the subheadline: "Why Hollywood fears Nikki Finke." Finke says the story is "an amusing caricature, only occasionally true but hardly insightful." She adds: "Still, I'm relieved that The New Yorker didn't lay a glove on me. I found Tad Friend, who covers Hollywood from Brooklyn, easy to manipulate, as was David Remnick, whom I enjoyed bitchslapping throughout but especially during the very slipshod fact-checking process."
The New Yorker | Deadline Hollywood Daily |
10-05-2009 10:10 am |
Industry News
How I Got That Story Live Chat: Jeffrey Billman Talks Investigative Reporting
Jeffrey Billman, who won first place for investigative reporting in the under-50,000 circulation category for his Orlando Weekly piece "Might Makes Right," discussed the story with Weekly editor Bob Whitby in a conversation moderated by the San Francisco Bay Guardian's Tim Redmond.
(FULL STORY)
AAN |
10-02-2009 2:45 pm |
Association News
Tags: Editorial, Management
